ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 27, 1996 TAG: 9608270154
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS PAGE: 32 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
THE GROWING PAINS this fall are going to bring students some new perks, including classier living space.
A $150 million-plus construction campaign is under way at Virginia Tech, an effort administrators say addresses a space crunch that has lingered since Virginia Polytechnic Institute in the 1960s and '70s grew into the state's largest university.
Class buildings going up include one for engineering on Stanger Street and an underground one for architecture behind Burruss Hall, where a plaza once stood.
Also under way is a new sports field adjacent to Lane Stadium. Spring Road will be closed during the construction, which includes a $520,000 women's softball field to help Tech meet its legal obligations under the federal Title IX sex discrimination laws.
New sports facilities, at a cost of more than $6 million, include:
Cassell Coliseum roof repairs. Remember all that ice and snow that forced relocation of two men's basketball games last winter?
English Field will get a press box for $488,000.
Lane Stadium is reinforcing its seats, with construction starting soon.
Rector Field House is getting new artificial turf.
A new track with a soccer field in the infield.
There also will be an $8 million boost to the sports program - a new two-story building adjacent to The Jamerson Center for student athletes. Look for an auditorium, weightlifting and conditioning gym, academic center and sports medicine complex.
Finally, across campus, look for continued work at the Donaldson Brown Hotel & Conference Center, where rooms will get face lifts this winter.
On the drawing board
Perhaps the most high-profile buildings remain in the planning stages.
Ground will be broken this year for a student health-fitness center that will boast a pool, stair-stepping machines, weights and all the other fitness and weight-reduction apparatus found in a good health club. The university's health services will be there, too. The building is slated for construction near Washington Street in easy walking distance of the dormitory district.
The revolutionary Advanced Communication and Information Technology Center will have movable inside walls inside that can shift with technology's rapid changes, while the facade will reflect the limestone towers of Burruss Hall. The building, scheduled for construction next year on the north corner of The Mall, will be linked to Newman Library with a sky bridge arching above the road. The window-lined bridge, designed to frame the War Memorial, will be a reading room that can
hold upwards of 200 people.
To save money and create office space, Tech has been renovating the Upper Quad into offices. As those buildings are finished, dorm students are moving into new residence halls to be built on the other side of campus amidst a cluster of existing dorms.
Administrators say they're not adding dorm rooms, just swapping old dorms for new, although they may consider a new dormitory later this year.
The new suite-style dorms should be quite a departure from the two-to-a-room digs with gang showers in the old dorms, Spencer said. Three double rooms will be designed around one bathroom, all with
carpeting, air-conditioning and nearby study space, he said.
The new dorms will be built on what's left of the old "Pritchard Prairie," next to the dorm of the same name. But Ed Spencer, assistant vice president for student affairs, said the university intends to retain the basketball and volleyball courts in that area.
Coming soon after the dorms are built: an addition to Cochrane Hall dining hall, so all the new students living in that corner of campus can eat nearby.
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. Spring Street in front of Lane Stadiumby CNBhas been closed for construction of a new track and soccer complex,
to include a women's softball field. GRAPHIC: Chart: Going up at
Virginia Tech. Map.